


What If I Never Get Over You (All the Way to the Graveyard)

by Gabna43



Series: What She's Thinking [4]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, mostly canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23268313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabna43/pseuds/Gabna43
Summary: Sara and Ava's thoughts after they break up in the aftermath of Sara's possession.Set post 3.15 [Necromancing the Stone] and through 3.16 [I, Ava].Neither Sara nor Ava is overly happy in this story, so fair warning for the angst. Also, them not being in a great mood may lead to more intense language choices than normal. Just sayin’.Inspired by the Halsey/Lady Antebellum performance at the 2019 CMA Awards.
Relationships: Sara Lance/Ava Sharpe
Series: What She's Thinking [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633009
Comments: 6
Kudos: 98





	1. Chapter 1

Quiet. Still. Oppressive, overwhelming silence.

She clutched the note in her hand again, fighting back tears. The scrap of paper was all she had left. She couldn’t part with it, though it would probably help if she could…did.

Two weeks was a blink of an eye in her life, but it had felt like...the beginning of forever. Being with Ava had meant everything to Sara; it had opened her eyes and changed her life. She had been happy.

She should have known better. Forever wasn’t something she deserved. Forever wasn’t going to be an option for her.

The alcohol in her system dulled the worst of the internal recriminations but did nothing to dull her actual pain.

It had been five days. In her permanently buzzed state one day was running into the next, but Gideon was ever helpful in letting her know that another day had passed. Another day when she couldn’t manage to do more than get out of bed for a few hours and try to avoid talking to her team at all costs.

She knew she couldn’t stay in her room because her team, especially Amaya and Ray, would eventually come looking for her. They would want answers. They would want to talk more about what had happened with the death totem and why Ava had not come to the ship since. They would want to know why communications with the Bureau were being directed to Gary.

Sara didn’t want to answer any of it. She didn’t want to talk or think or feel. She just wanted to drink and stop caring.

She used the fact that they were wary of her, deservedly so, to her advantage. They knew she was up and around because she made sure they saw her in her office and in the galley, but she covered her pain and doubt by limiting her conversations. The team chalked her closed off demeanor to the events surrounding the death totem, and they went on the best they could.

There had been a handful of minor anachronisms to address. She sent the team out in pairs while she herself remained behind. Though her first instinct was to rush into the field and beat on something or someone, Sara was too scared of what she might do to risk it. She was very angry and very sad right now, and an angry, careless, heartbroken assassin - possessed or not - was a liability to everyone.

Between missions, she came back to her room to sulk and drink and hold the pillow that still faintly smelled of lavender and vanilla. And run her fingers over the bold script on the paper that she could not leave anywhere other than in the back pocket of whatever pants she was wearing.

She had done the right thing. Better now than later, when setting Ava free definitely would not have been, could not have been her choice. When after claiming her whole heart and soul, her entire being, Ava would have walked away from her eventually. The darkness inside of her was simply too much for anyone to love. Sara could see that now.

Like John, she was destined to walk alone.

She knew she should consider herself lucky that her team had not fled the ship as soon as Gideon was operational. Them leaving was also something she deserved. But thus far, everyone was trying to maintain some semblance of normal despite the captain almost killing the entire team.

She suspected that Ray – the one she had attacked first and cruelest because Mallused-possessed Sara knew that his nanite gun was her greatest threat – was pushing the team to forgive her when he of all people had every reason to doubt her. She had taken advantage of him being alone in the lab and had hurt him, ruthlessly and repeatedly. 

One of the first things she had done once Ava had left and she was alone in her room was ask Gideon to show her the rundown of Ray’s injuries. Though the AI resisted providing that information to Sara, she finally relented under the Captain’s command. Sara knew exactly to what extent each of her team members had suffered at her hand.

It infuriated her, embarrassed her, and hurt her soul. How could the Legends come back from this? How could they trust her again?

Ray kept reminding her that some part of her had been in there, the part of her that couldn’t and didn’t actually kill any of them, even when being controlled by death itself and a demon. The part of her that beat Ray to a pulp but didn’t slice his throat, that wrecked Amaya’s knee but didn’t put the knife into her chest, that broke Zari’s wrist but not her neck. She didn’t lose complete control of herself, according to Ray, and that meant that some part of her was inherently good.

According to Amaya, the totem simply exaggerated Sara’s true nature, and even with Mallus’ influence on top of it all, she had not become a killer. Ray kept telling her that. Amaya kept telling her that.

But she couldn’t get past the medical scans, the flashes of attacks against her own that taunted her in her mind, the cries of pain she heard when she tried to sleep – both from her friends and of the people she had assassinated, the haunted expressions each of the Legends tried to hide whenever she walked into a room.

Sara was a lost, dark, condemned soul, just like John, and it would be best for everyone if they would go as far away from her as possible.

She had intentionally pushed away the one person other than Ray who she believed would stand by her in spite of everything. If she felt nothing else, it was that she had to protect Ava, more so than anyone else.

The Legends could make their own decisions, and Sara would not stop them from staying or leaving, but Ava would want to stay with her. She knew beyond a doubt that Ava would have wanted to fight for her, to fight for their relationship. Which is why she refused to give Ava a choice in the matter.

Ava was everything Sara didn’t know she wanted. In some ways, that had made the decision debilitating. Some part of Sara was now simply shut down, for good she imagined. Without Ava’s warmth and light, the darkness felt even darker, even more difficult to survive.

Shoving the Director away at this point was still better than trying to deal with the loss later. Sara had fallen too hard. Continuing any further with Ava would have made breaking it off later all but impossible. It almost already was.

Her heart had desperately wanted to stop Ava from leaving. She had even turned at the last second to do so when she heard the woman’s steps moving through the portal. But Sara was dangerous. She was deadly. She was damaged.

Ava needed to be kept away, even if it meant Sara was shattered in the process.


	2. Chapter 2

The hot blonde seated across from her was gorgeous, funny, engaging… _wrong_. Wrong eyes, wrong height, wrong laugh, wrong hands. Not Sara’s hands. Not _Sara_.

But this blonde – Tina…no, Tori…Tiffany, maybe? – was here. She was looking at Ava like the Director was a delicious snack.

This cocktail meetup was Ava’s sixth “date” in the ten days since Sara had dumped her. Drinks, appetizers, hotel room.

_Touch me here, here, and here. Not there. Not like that._

_Don’t be gentle._

_Don’t kiss me._

_Don’t try to stay. Get your things and go._

Rinse, repeat.

Ava had not been home in more than a week. She’d stopped going to or calling into work several days ago. She had tried to show up to work after leaving the Waverider as if nothing was wrong. After only a day or two, though, she could not deal with being around anything related to Sara, and her job literally revolved around supervising the Time Bureau, including the Legends.

She had decided to stop thinking, stop worrying, fucking stop all feeling.

Half drunk, half shut down, she was barely treading water. She knew it. But Ava didn’t want to care. She couldn’t care because as soon as she did, she would fall apart.

She had not cried since the first night. Something had broken so profoundly that she was numb to anyone or anything.

Her ex in Vegas, Rachel, had happily welcomed her into her bed for a day, but she quickly noted that Ava was somewhere else, far away from what they were doing. She urged Ava to face up to whatever she was running from and then unceremoniously sent her packing.

She had told the Director that she wanted no part of Ava shutting herself off from the world, and that she still cared enough for Ava to pick her up and push her back out into whatever she, as a former FBI agent, was “more than capable of dealing with.”

Ava was not sure. She didn’t know if she actually was capable of dealing with everything that had happened a week and a half ago.

There was too much piled on top of itself. She started out as Sara’s girlfriend, then she was terrified that Sara had bonded with the death totem, then she was dealing with John Constantine and her bubbling jealousy because this man had touched Sara, fucked Sara less than a month previous, and then she felt helpless, hopeless because she couldn’t find Sara, couldn’t reach her.

When they finally did make it to the Waverider, Sara’s team was decimated and the person she, Gary, and John found on the other side of that portal was in no way like her girlfriend. It had taken every bit of her strength, everything in her, to believe that what they shared was strong enough to pull Sara back.

She had cracked herself open, raw and honest, pleading in front of Sara’s team and in front of John for her lover to come home, to come home _to her_.

When Sara’s ice blue eyes had finally blinked in recognition and had filled with affection – and something else, something like sadness and regret that Ava couldn’t quite identify in the moment – Ava felt her life shift.

She would do anything for this woman. She would risk anything. She would stop time itself to keep Sara whole. That acceptance of the depth of her emotions felt like the sun rising and the light touching her face for the first time after a lifetime of darkness.

Despite it all, she was ready to let go of her fear and doubts about being with Sara and let her heart lead. John was right; Sara was worth the risk.

Given everything that they had overcome in that one day, Ava knew there was nothing, not time, not demons, not totems, not ex lovers, not their jobs, _nothing_ that could keep them apart.

Except, apparently, Sara herself.

Amid insanity, magic, possession, panic, violence, anger, and fear, Ava had discovered that her heart belonged to Sara and Sara alone.

And Sara had taken one look at that gift and handed it back to her.

Well **_fuck her_.**

Her time courier sounded, forcing her thoughts to the present. She should have left the damn thing at home, but given that she hadn’t been home lately, Ava believed it was safer on her wrist.

Her calling in sick when she fled work to head to Vegas did not deter Gary. He was worried.

A day or two after she had stumbled home from Vegas, Gary had shown up on her doorstep with soup and medicine, just in time to interrupt her pushing her second…or maybe her third…UpSwipes “date” out the door.

He had believed, she hoped, her story that the woman was her cousin visiting from California (which didn’t explain why the woman was holding her shoes and being escorted out of Ava’s door at 11:45 on a Tuesday night), but he also knew that the events surrounding the death totem had to be upsetting her.

He wouldn’t let it go, regardless of her commanding, then begging him to do so. He had finally stopped asking her about Sara and the death totem when she threatened to use the memory wipe on him. Because he had been there and seen everything, Gary’s mere presence made it impossible for her to forget.

She stopped going home and stopped responding to his texts. Her lack of acknowledgement had not stopped him from texting her, however.

He didn’t push, even when her promised date of return from sick leave came and went with no word from her. He continued to keep her updated about what was happening at the Bureau, with the occasional request that she reassure him she was okay.

She refused to do so. Being willing to feel and care about anyone was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. Gary needed to get used to dealing with the cold-hearted bitch most everyone at work believed her to be anyway.

That cold-hearted bitch was the only thing keeping her functional at the moment.

Tiffany interrupted her train of thought. “Do you need to go?” she asked coyly, gesturing toward the courier. She flashed what she must have believed was a sexy smile in Ava’s direction. Ironically, the smile made her a little sick to her stomach.

Some part of her was still inside, crying out, begging her to stop all of this.

The intentionally cold, ruthless, cut-throat, sarcastic, unreachable, unfeeling, **angry** Agent Sharpe had been in control of every interaction since Ava left Vegas. That anger, that unflinching unmovable power, that disdain for everyone apparently turned some women on, but none of it was real. The suit of armor helped her maintain some shred of sanity. But Ava, the real Ava, was disgusted with herself.

Being around Sara and the Legends while also dealing with the failings of the Bureau regarding Rip and Mallus had frayed that Agent Sharpe persona. All the rules and regulations meant little when faced with humanity and hard choices.

They had locked Rip in jail for making a bad judgement call. Yes, agents had died, but agents died on all sorts of missions for the Bureau. Yes, Rip should have been honest about why he was in London when he requested backup, but he was absolutely right in his attempts to prove to the Bureau that Mallus was a threat.

Ava had watched for weeks as the bureaucracy around her did nothing other than make more rules and regulations instead of addressing the incoming threat. And every day that passed with Rip imprisoned, with Bennet wielding authority instead of listening, with agents hopelessly pursuing the Darhks, with the failings of rigid thinking becoming more and more glaringly obvious, Agent Sharpe had realized that their way of approaching these issues may not be the only way or always the best way. That realization was part of why she had disobeyed orders and returned to help Sara in Vinland.

When she became Director, Ava had intentionally chosen to keep the softer outer appearance she had begun to assume around Sara. She maintained the Bureau’s high standards but also voiced support for thinking outside the box on occasion, especially in the field and under duress. She had encouraged agents to share their ideas, even when they disagreed with her. She had purposefully stepped away from the dictatorial, top-down management style of her predecessor and emphasized teamwork.

In her mind, the Bureau was a better organization for such changes, even if she knew that much of the difference came from her internal acknowledgement that Sara was a very effective leader and that the Bureau could learn several lessons from the Legends. Not that she would admit that to anyone.

The return of aloof and sneering Agent Sharpe was simply a cover for Ava. She knew she was hot. She knew she was a commanding presence. She knew she could push herself to the limits and not care, as long as the mask stayed in place. She no longer had to feel and could do whatever in the hell she wanted. Demand what she wanted, when and how.

But Ava had fought hard to set the mask aside. It made her a better person, a better friend (to the few she had), a better leader, and a better girlfriend. While she may have lost the chance to be the last, Ava admitted with a sinking stomach that the Bureau she loved deserved better than what she was giving it right now. Her agents, many of whom had been with the Bureau from the beginning alongside her, deserved better. Gary deserved better.

Her time carrier beeped again.

Ava glanced back up at the still-smiling Tiffany, who now raised an eyebrow to go along with the sexy grin. This, _she_ wasn’t what Ava wanted. Ava could not live like this.

She smiled, somewhat kindly at the woman. “This is not really working for me tonight. I’m sorry.”

The woman’s predatory, sickeningly sweet, leering grin disappeared immediately.

Tiffany sat back, pulled a $20 out of her clutch, tossed it onto the table, whipped out her phone, and said, “Yeah, good luck,” as she left without a second glance back at the bemused Bureau Director.

It was the first time Ava had truly smiled in days.

She checked her time courier – Level 8 anachronism at the 1982 World’s Fair. Ava pushed away her drink and reached for the water on the table. Rachel was right; she _was_ strong enough to deal with this. _Somehow._

It was time for Director Sharpe to return to work.


	3. Chapter 3

By all accounts, Sara was keeping it together fairly well. Her drinking had slowed, she could sleep for two or three hours at a time, and the constant ache in her chest had settled, somewhat. She decided she’d learn to live with feeling like a piece of her was missing. She had lots of experience with that, after all.

She had even been able to put Ava’s note away, carefully placing it into one of Laurel’s favorite law books.

She was no longer constantly anxious that she would slide back into Mallus’ realm. After she had rejected the demon’s offer to join him and the Darhks, he seemed to be done with her and was out looking for another soul to steal.

Constantine had beefed up the protection spells in and around the ship as a precaution, and she had urged Ray to rebuild the nanite gun as quickly as possible and to stow it where everyone but her knew where to find it and how to operate it if necessary. The Captain wasn’t taking any chances.

She had even touched and handled the death totem several times, unbeknownst to her team, because she did not want to fear anything. Ever. Whatever Ava had done to pull her out of the darkness seemed to extend beyond Mallus to also make her immune to the calling of the death totem’s worst instincts.

When it was in her hand, she could feel a vibration, a hum of power, but she wasn’t overwhelmed with the desire to wear and wield it.

She should probably share that discovery with someone – she wanted to talk about it with Ava – but no one was available for her to share these kinds of revelations with.

The team kept the death totem under serious lock and key at all times. They still didn’t completely trust her, and she couldn’t blame them. They had apparently forgotten that Sara was a master assassin who could break pretty much any security system when properly motivated.

The main problem for Sara was not the death totem or the threat of Mallus. The issue was that everywhere she looked she saw people she had hurt. There was no escaping her choices and her actions on the Waverider.

Outside of her quarters, every interaction was tentative and hesitant. Inside her quarters, everything was Ava. Even the jumpship, which had long been her refuge away from the world, was tainted with memories of Ava’s laugh, Ava’s sigh, Ava’s gray-blue eyes, Ava’s soft lips. There was nowhere Sara could go for a moment’s peace.

She needed to find some space, to get away for a little bit.

There was a place in Maryland where her dad would take her and her sister when they needed to escape modern life, Assateague Island. It was remote, challenging to get to, lacking development, and quiet. Only a certain number of visitors were allowed, and the camping area was so far off the grid Sara wasn’t certain even Gideon would easily reach her there. It was exactly what she required, especially in the early spring when few visitors would be there.

Sara needed some time away to collect her thoughts and prepare herself for the battle ahead, away from the constant eggshell interactions with the Legends and away from reminders of what could have been with Ava.

She packed a bag, gave Gideon a list of several commands (the most important one being _don’t go anywhere, no matter what anyone says_ ), and called Nate, Ray, and Amaya to her quarters. If the last thing she did in prepping for her trip was put on Ava’s gray coat that had been accidentally left behind on the Waverider weeks ago, no one but Sara was the wiser.

She explained her general plan to the Legends – that she was leaving for a bit but would return within one day’s time on the Waverider – and expected that they would support her need to take time off. They didn’t.

Instead, they argued with her and urged her to reconsider. Recognizing that they would keep her in her quarters as long as they could, she moved toward the jumpship, calmly but sternly batting away their objections. She placed Amaya in charge and transferred Gideon’s voice authorization to the totem bearer.

Earlier, Sara had also informed Gideon of where and when she could be found in case Amaya or another Legend needed to find her in an absolute emergency, but she had threatened the AI with a Zari-led overhaul if that information got out in any other circumstances.

Though Ray continued to follow her to the jumpship, discussing all the reasons her leaving was a bad idea, Sara tuned him out. She knew what she was doing, and she knew why she needed to do it.

Facing Mallus with one hand mentally and emotionally tied behind her back was not a smart play. She needed to be ready, and constant reminders of thoughts and feelings she was not prepared to deal with were not helping her focus.

She had almost escaped to freedom when Gary stumbled into the hallway. _Not now, Gary._

Without thought, she assured him that he’d never have to worry about interrupting them in bed again. Her mouth was much quicker than her brain because as soon as she admitted that, she knew she’d screwed up. Now the whole team would want to know what had happened, when it happened, why Sara had pushed Ava away, and why she hadn’t told anyone for days.

Well, if she hadn’t planned on leaving the Waverider before, her admission to Gary sealed her need for a quick exit and some time away from her team.

She hurried into the jumpship, stowed her bag, and prepared for departure, trusting that Gideon had already programmed her flight path.

When she heard the note of panicked concern in Gary’s voice, she paused and turned around.

She had anticipated that Ava would be upset with her decision, that Ava might work herself to the bone for days, becoming even more of a workaholic. She hadn’t anticipated the Director disappearing.

What if Grodd or the Darhks had targeted Ava?

Ava had told Sara many times that work was her refuge in times of emotional upheaval. Why wouldn’t Ava be there? And if she wasn’t there, why hadn’t she told Gary of all people where she was going or that she was going somewhere?

She’d only been the Director for a few weeks. Leaving without notice and extensive preparation for her absence was very unlike Ava.

Yes, Ava was justifiably hurt and angry that Sara broke up with her. She couldn’t blame her for either. But to disappear?

Sara bit her lip. Ava was patently not her concern anymore. She’d made that decision. She had to live with it.

She should turn around, get into the pilot’s chair, and go camping at the beach.

Ava was the Bureau’s problem, and Sara trusted that Gary could find plenty of agents who would help him locate the Director…but Ava would hate that. Ava would hate anyone noticing she was gone. Ava would hate her agents speculating about her personal life. The woman would probably even hate that Gary was standing on the Waverider telling Sara and Ray that she was AWOL.

The Captain sighed. Ava had never let her down when she needed help. Regardless of her decision, the idea of her ex possibly being in danger made Sara’s blood run cold. A large part of her insisted that the woman was perfectly capable of handling herself and that Sara getting involved was going to get very messy emotionally.

Sara might be able to hide from or lie to everyone else, but she had admitted the truth to herself days ago. She loved Ava. She was in love with her. She loved her more than she loved herself, so setting the woman free was the only thing she could have done. She had, had to be strong enough for both of them.

And as someone who was in love with the woman, she had no choice but to make sure the Director was okay, no matter what it did to the carefully crafted emotional hardshell she had constructed around herself in order to function the past few days.

Sara sighed again as she stepped off the jumpship. “Don’t worry, Gary, because we’re gonna find her.”

_Damn it, Ava. Where are you?_

Standing in front of the upscale home in Fresno with Gary and Ray was not how Sara had thought she’d meet Ava’s family. Yeah, she’d slipped up with that comment, and she knew the guys didn’t believe her quick attempt to cover it. She was saved from further embarrassment by the Sharpes opening the door.

While Gary and Ray were impressed by the appearance of the striking older couple, Sara’s senses began to tingle, pretty much immediately. She had spent hours watching Ava’s face and her mannerisms.

When you love someone, you learn a lot about them, even without really trying to do so. You get to know their body language, their tones of voice, their various sighs and sounds, the looks in their eyes. What makes them tick.

The house was wrong. The people were wrong. Nothing about this couple had any observable connection to the woman who held Sara’s heart. The voice inflections, mannerisms, accent, everything was _slightly_ off. Sara could see nothing of Ava in either person casually sitting across from her in the living room.

She knew that Ava wasn’t close with her parents and didn’t see them that often. Ava had once joked that she must have been adopted because she had no idea what Sara was talking about when she discussed her past with Quentin and Laurel. Family was not something Ava seemed to get in the same way Sara did.

The issue was that Sara just could not see her growing up here with these people and becoming the woman she knew. Every family was different, she kept reminding herself. This couple clearly cared for Ava; there were pictures of their daughter everywhere. Sara shouldn’t immediately judge every family based on her own experiences.

But her assassin training would not let her ignore the details. Yes, there were lots of pictures, but few of them included the entire family. There were plenty of pictures of the older Sharpes posed as a happy couple and many pictures of Ava, the majority of which might melt Sara’s heart under different circumstances.

Yet something about the situation was **_off_** , and Sara had learned to trust those instincts.

Sara knew Ray had picked up on her restless energy. He’d been her friend long enough to notice her growing unease, but he must have assumed it was related to her breakup.

She couldn’t help but begin to ask seemingly random questions about the photos, and as soon as Ava’s fifteenth birthday party came up, Sara’s fingers itched for a weapon. She didn’t know who these people were, but they were _not_ Ava Sharpe’s parents. The paintball birthday party was one of her favorite stories Ava had shared on their first date, and Sara knew that no parent would forget that story or forget in which year of their child’s adolescence it had occurred.

Granted, she probably could have gotten the information out of the actors without the use of the knife, but pulling a knife on the woman was much more efficient than having a conversation about her suspicions. Ava obviously wasn’t here, and she doubted the people claiming to be her parents had any clue about her whereabouts.

But if these people had been pretending to be Ava’s parents for more than four years, what did that even mean? As Ray asked, why would they be willing to do something like this? What was going on? Who the hell was Ava if the parents whose picture graced her desk at the Bureau were not, in fact, her parents?

Had Ava lied about her past? And if so, why? Why would she have lied to Sara repeatedly? What else was she hiding? Could Sara trust anything she thought she knew about the woman she loved?

Sara had a bad feeling about this. She was no longer sure she wanted to know where Ava was or why she wasn’t at work because what if that knowledge fundamentally altered Sara’s view of her?

Some part of her was still worried that Ava might be out there hurting or in danger, but now she was additionally concerned that they might be opening Pandora’s box.

No matter what, they needed to keep searching, so they headed back to the Bureau.


	4. Chapter 4

Ava strolled into the Bureau looking only slightly worse for wear, vaguely smiling and nodding to the agents who paused to welcome her back.

She had brought President John F. Kennedy to the office with her and handed him off to the relocation team. It had probably been dangerous for her to take on the anachronism alone. Doing so had pushed her exhausted body to its limits – several days of continuous drinking and mindless fucking would do that to a girl – but her skills and quick thinking had saved the day.

She did call for backup to erase the memories of the families, tourists, and protection agents who had been in World’s Fair Park watching, troubled and fascinated as JFK engaged in a stirring debate with Ronald Reagan regarding the responsible use of nuclear power and natural resources.

Reagan was historically meant to be on that stage delivering a speech to the World’s Fair crowd, but the displaced Kennedy took personal offense at Reagan’s continuous praise of coal and nuclear as the energies of the future and pushed to join him on the stage. Reagan, apparently believing the dialogue was part of the planned festivities, heartily jumped into the argument.

When Ava had tried to distract the crowd and then move Kennedy away, posing as a fellow agent from a sister Bureau (which was technically the truth), she had not anticipated that the Secret Service would consider her a threat to POTUS. Suddenly, she was outmatched and overpowered. If not for the fortunate arrival of the local university’s football team and marching band originally timed to celebrate the rousing conclusion of Reagan’s address, Ava would have been in serious trouble.

Instead, she finished off the closest agents, knocked Kennedy out, and carried him over her shoulder as she snuck through several underground access tunnels in and around the park. She reached the river running through downtown, stole a boat from the marina, and sped away from the celebrations until she could open a portal and take them both to the Bureau.

Hand to hand combat with the Secret Service had not been on her radar at the outset of her day. Yet fixing anachronisms gave her something to do that was much better for her than her previous activities had been. Ava knew how to do this. She knew how to save and fix time.

Her world may be crumbling, but her agents, her Bureau needed her to get her head in the game.

She was thankful that the Bureau’s showers were hot and offered pummeling water pressure and that she had the foresight to keep an extra suit in her locker. She may feel like shit, close to collapse if she were honest with herself, but at least she no longer smelled or looked like she had been on a weeklong drunken, sex-laced bender. If anyone noticed that she had not taken off her sunglasses since entering the building, no one commented.

She needed to find Gary to layout their plans for the rest of the week, but no one knew where he was. She assumed he would show up sooner rather than later, and she owed him some leeway after the last few days.

Ava headed to her office, carrying the mission reports filed over the past week, though she was dreading having to read about the Legends.

Never in a million years could she have anticipated running into Sara twenty minutes into her return to work. Because _of fucking course_ Gary had gone to Sara. Of course, he had. She hadn’t gotten around to telling him that Sara had dumped her. And he was worried about her. It made sense.

It also made Ava want to scream. She was trembling slightly, whether from exhaustion or anger, she wasn’t sure, and that trembling made her even more infuriated because she knew Sara could see it. Her mind simply couldn’t wrap her head around the presence of the woman standing in front of her in her own goddamn office hallway.

The woman who had the audacity to be _here_ , looking fucking edible wearing the fucking Burberry coat that Ava had accidently left in the Captain’s quarters weeks ago, seemingly calm and collected, and worried about her. _Bullshit_. It was all bullshit.

She yanked the sunglasses off, hoping that they couldn’t see the dark circles and bloodshot eyes the glasses had been concealing, and snapped at Gary to fix his tie, doing everything she could to maintain, to exert some small measure of control.

She lied to them easily because there was no way she could tell Gary and certainly she could never tell Sara how she had spent the last week of her life. She was immediately resentful that the Legends even cared about where she was.

Sara no longer had any rights to be worried about whether Ava showed up to work or not. _How dare_ she even act like she cared.

Ava may not be able to do anything about Sara and Ray, but Gary was in for it after the others left. The boundaries that had dissolved between the Legends and the Bureau were about to become insurmountable, unbreachable walls, and Gary better get used to the idea and fast.

She pushed past them and stormed into her office. This was one of those days that she wished her doors weren’t see-through. However, having an executive washroom ensuite came in handy at times like these.

She shakily pulled open the door and pushed herself up to sit on the vanity top, lowered her head into her hands, and sobbed angry, hollow tears.

Sara had no right to be there. No right to see her like this, to give her a look, especially a look filled with suspicion and doubt for some reason.

Sara had made her choice, and she should have to live with it, without Ava.

The tears made the pounding in her head worse. She had to pull it together.

This was why Ava had avoided work; the effort it took for her to keep herself functional and professional was monumental. After this dreadfully long day that refused to end, now midway through next one, Ava wanted to curl up in a ball in her bedroom and not wake up again for a good, long while.

Being the boss meant that wallowing was not an option, however. Well… _no longer_ an option.

She washed her face, redid her makeup, tightened her bun, and picked up the files she had dropped on the floor. She could do this; she could be Director Sharpe and ignore everything else. She had to.

Ava had been reviewing mission records for a few minutes, intentionally leaving the Legends’ notes for last, when a distant security alarm began to sound outside of her office.

What the hell. She hadn’t heard that alarm in months, not since…Sara had stolen the Waverider.

 _Sara_. Ava clamped her jaw, hard. She was on her feet and moving quickly to the security office without much thought, but her mind was churning with red, hot, burning rage.

The Mothership was on the move. Ava didn’t know whether to scream or laugh at the absurdity of her life.

First, Sara had the audacity to come waltzing into the Bureau looking for her; now she had stolen the goddamn Mothership, apparently with Gary’s help based on the access logs.

It never crossed her mind that it could be anyone else because Sara was the only one with the balls to even try such a stunt, much less do it twice.

Yeah, Ava would _definitely_ be handling this pursuit personally. Not that it wouldn’t give her some satisfaction to send an entire team after these fuckers, but despite everything, Ava wanted to handle her own problems.

Sara was her problem. Gary, too. She hoped he enjoyed Antarctica because if she had anything to say about it, he’d be stationed at the Time Bureau research outpost there for the next three months.

Once the head of security pinpointed the Mothership’s arrival in Vancouver, 2213, ( _again_ , _what the fuck, Sara?)_ Ava spun on her heel to go get prepped for the mission. Even through her anger, she knew there had to be a reason Sara had done this, had broken numerous protocols in order to go to that particular place and time in such a way that would definitely rain Bureau hellfire down on her and the Legends.

Against her better judgement, Ava wanted to know what this was about before she completely blew her stack. Sara always had reasons for the insanity, even if those reasons weren’t initially apparent. Many things may have changed for them both over the last few days, but regardless of what Sara believed about herself, Ava knew her to make decisions based on something other than pure recklessness.

In her office, Ava checked and holstered her weapon, ensured that she input her Director passcode into the settings on her communicator so she could reach the Bureau from the “off-limits” location, and reached down to program her time courier…which she now realized was nowhere to be found.

**_Fucking Sara Lance._ **

Ava slammed her hands down on her desk and yelled in frustration, startling the two agents walking past her office in the hall who moved away from her with great haste. She was going to straight up murder the woman the next time she saw her.

The Director was honestly not sure how much more she could take without collapsing and giving up.

Nothing made sense. Her head hurt, her heart was broken, her body was thoroughly used and abused, and her soul was so very tired.

And there was no one she wanted to talk to more than Sara Lance, no one she needed more than she needed Sara right now. The one thing, the one person Ava could no longer have.

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose with a shaking hand, and took an unsteady breath. _Count to ten. Something you see, something you hear, something you touch. Count to ten. Breathe._ She heard Sara’s voice in her mind, tethering her to the here and now. _Breathe, Ava_.

The panic began to fade, slowly. The pounding in her chest eased.

She smoothed down her shirt, rebuttoned her coat, and checked her bun to make sure it was high and tight.

Director Sharpe calmly (in appearance only) stepped out of her office and headed down to the Bureau tech department in order to get a new courier and have it reprogrammed with her travel permissions so she could go see what the _actual fuck_ Captain Lance had gotten herself into this time.


	5. Chapter 5

Sara was pathetically glad that Ray was with her. Of all the Legends, the scientist who had known her longer than anyone else on the team was the one best suited to help her sort through the absolute madness they had discovered here in 2213.

Ava was a clone. A clone from the future. Sara had slept with a clone. Sara was in love with a clone. A clone who had repeatedly lied to her about **everything**.

She was beyond angry. Nothing about how she felt was real because how could you love someone who didn’t really exist?

Ray kept trying to keep her grounded and far away from the intense emotions he knew were building under the surface. He pointed out that Ava had every reason to lie, but that even if she had lied about her past, it didn’t change the way she made Sara feel. It didn’t make their entire relationship a lie. Ava was still Director Sharpe. Everything they had gone through together had happened. All their hours-long conversations had really taken place.

Sara’s emotions kept leaping from being absolutely stunned to confused to angry to sad to filled with rage to hurt and back through the cycle again. How could any of this be real?

It was very therapeutic to throat punch the obnoxious Ava death threat clone, but Sara could not even begin to consider how she was going to confront the actual Ava Sharpe the next time they saw each other.

This was all too much for Sara, even with Ray’s constant reassurances and annoying reminders. They had to get out of 2213 before they made anything worse. Sara could figure it all out later.

When their Ava ( _her_ Ava, her mind muttered) stepped through the portal, the anger rolled off her in waves. Director Sharpe had every reason to be pissed at them for stealing her time courier and hijacking the Mothership. She had every reason to be even more angry at Sara now. And Sara could take that anger, but she was not about to sit and listen to Ava lecture her when the Director was trying to pretend she had no idea what the three of them had discovered in this lab in 2213.

_Yeah, we know, Ava. I **know**. I know that everything you have ever told me about yourself is a fucking lie. How could you flirt with me, date me, let me fall in love with you knowing you were an anachronism? Knowing the entire time that you were a clone? How could you do that to me, to us?_

Sara’s rage was white hot, and she dug her nails into her palms, trying to prevent herself from lashing out and saying something she could never take back.

The rage immediately dissipated when Ava’s face turned ghastly white and the woman collapsed. Sara rushed to her, desperately checking that Ava had not seriously injured herself in the faint.

So…as Ray noted, clearly Ava did _not_ , in fact, know that this was the lab in which she was created or that she was a clone or that she was an anachronism.

Holy hell.

Now what?

How in the name of all gods was Sara supposed to tell Ava the truth? She didn’t want to be the one to have to tell Ava, to have to hurt her even more after everything Sara had put her through in the last few weeks. She simply couldn’t do it, even if she wanted Ava to find out from a friendly face. Gary was useless, so that left Ray.

Yes, they could mindwipe her as Gary suggested several times while Ava was passed out, but that didn’t seem right. Sara would never be able to look the woman she loved in the eye again if she kept something like that from Ava. She had been busy all day mentally condemning Ava for keeping secrets from her, and she couldn’t turn around and do the same thing, even if it was for a damn good reason.

Sara, more than anyone, knew that much of Ava’s identity was tied up in being an Agent and now Director of the Time Bureau. What would knowing this truth about herself do to her? Especially on top of the events of the death totem, Sara being possessed, and then Sara pushing her away. How much could one woman, even a woman as strong as Ava, be expected to absorb in a two-week time period?

She guessed they were all about to find out as Ava began to regain consciousness.

  


_Keep moving. One step at a time. Don’t look around, don’t slow down, get to the Mothership quickly and quietly. Deal with Ava later. Deal with Ava later._

“Sara, stop. Wait.” Ava’s voice was pleading with her, a far cry from the closed off, angry Director Sharpe who had faced them a few minutes previously. Something had caused the change, but Sara did not have time to figure out what was going on inside Ava’s mind.

Sara tugged her sleeve away and kept moving. Now was not the time, but how could she explain that to Ava whose mind was apparently blocking the clone knowledge, likely for the Director’s own sanity? They had to **move.**

As a trained operative, Ava should be trusting her three teammates when they said to haul ass to the Mothership without delay, running quietly and stealthily along with them.

What was Ava’s deal? She’d never seen her this wound up, this nervous before, especially in the middle of a mission. Sara was worried that Ava had a concussion or far worse, but she didn’t have time to worry. None of them did.

The death threat clone was calling backup, and Sara and Ray both lacked their weapon kits. Gary would be even more useless in a fight than he was in dealing with his newfound knowledge of Ava’s clone status. So, that left them with two lethal combatants in her and Ava (who might have a concussion), one decent fighter in Ray, and a guy who would have to hide. Sara did not like those odds, especially if any of the army of clones had even half of Ava’s advanced combat skills.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck. Walk and talk, Ava. Walk and talk_.

Ava physically pulled her to a stop, stepping in front of her and preventing her from continuing their getaway.

Sara could pick her up if necessary. She’d carried her to bed a few times, so she knew that if properly inspired, she’d find the strength. But as she was calculating her odds of success of grabbing Ava and explaining later, some of what the Director was saying began to sink in.

She’d…called her ex in Vegas. “Called” was obviously a euphemism here, right? Ava had told her about her years-ago failed relationship with Rachel early in their friendship, before she and Sara were even dating. While the image in her mind of Ava running to Rachel’s bed after their breakup wasn’t particularly helpful at the moment, Sara had no right to object. She tried to keep her face neutrally blank.

Whatever Ava was doing was clearly important to her, and after everything, Sara desperately wanted to support her in whatever this was, but they were out of time.

Row after row of Ava riot gear “fem bots” marched into lines behind her. How were they going to explain any of this to –

_Wait, what?!_

Ava had created an Upswipes profile and….used the hell out of it, apparently. Is that where Ava had disappeared to for days? She’d skipped work and worried Gary and caused this entire nightmare search because she went on a goddamn **fucking spree** across Star City?

Ok, that hurt. Not that Sara could complain. She was the queen of the one night stand, of using sex to feel absolutely nothing. She’d even fucked John to avoid admitting that she liked Ava.

But Ava was different. She hadn’t been with anyone for a while before she and Sara had gotten together. Ava wasn’t like her; she wasn’t careless in her decision making because she wanted to make everything in her mind go away. She was careful in who she spent her time with and who she shared her body with. Until recently, evidently. _What the actual fuck?_

Sara’s chest ached, and her carefully neutral face slipped a bit. But she had no right. Ava could sleep with whoever she wanted to. She didn’t owe Sara an explanation and certainly didn’t owe Sara this kind of honesty, especially in front of Ray and Gary.

Ava had no idea Sara was in love with her. She only knew that Sara had pushed her away, had rejected her. She had every right to go out and fuck every lesbian in Star City if she felt like it. Sara couldn’t really say a word about it, no matter how much it might be burning her alive inside.

She once again schooled her features and looked up at Ava, trying to reassure the woman who had unknowingly just punched a chasm in Sara’s heart. She had to do something, even as her mind was choked with everything she’d learned since she arrived in this godforsaken lab, as she knew it was only a matter of time before the clones moved on them.

She sucked in a breath and told Ava to turn around.


	6. Chapter 6

Ava was exhausted and running on whatever small amount of adrenaline her body still possessed. This horrid day would not end.

She had no idea where they were or why Sara, Gary, and Ray were literally dragging her along through an advanced medical laboratory of some kind. She knew they were in 2213 Vancouver but beyond that, nothing the trio was saying or doing made any sense to her.

Her head was pounding again, and she was having trouble remembering something that seemed very important for her to remember.

The only thing that made any of this okay was that she was with Sara. Yes, she knew the woman didn’t want to be with her, and she knew that whatever they had between them didn’t matter anymore.

But being with Sara made her feel safe and protected, in spite of everything.

The anger and pain directed at the Captain began to seep away when Ava really looked at her. Sara was wearing her coat. That wasn’t an accident. Sara, while beautiful as always, also had dark circles under her eyes, so she wasn’t sleeping either.

Ava wondered if the nightmares had returned permanently now that she wasn’t there to keep them at bay, though she reminded herself that Sara could have found numerous evening companions since they’d last seen each other, too.

Sara was clearly stressed out and very worried about whatever situation in which they currently found themselves, but Ava had complete faith that they would make it through, together but…independently…as they always did.

Ava couldn’t stay mad at her. The Legend had been honest about why she was pushing her away. There weren’t any mind games or manipulations happening here. Sara was trying to protect her from whatever darkness she felt inside of herself. Her ex wasn’t cheating on her or mistreating her; she was simply doing what she thought was best for Ava.

The only thing Ava objected to in terms of Sara’s reasoning was that she was a big girl who could make her own decisions, and she didn’t need the Captain’s protection. She could handle herself, even against evil-death-totem-Mallus-Sara.

The darkness Sara carried with her had long been a part of the woman. Ava saw the shadow of death, the violence, the self-loathing, the doubts that crept in when she thought about her past, the simmering blood lust that remained largely under control, the laissez faire attitude that concealed a deep love for those she considered members of her team. She was aware of these aspects of Sara when they were just good friends.

None of it had scared her off or turned her away from the possibility of a romantic relationship. The hours they had spent talking about life, the universe, and everything before Sara ever asked her out had revealed so much to Ava, but she also knew that Sara may have been unconscious of how far she let her guard down sometimes and how much Ava was able connect the dots.

Had she expected Sara to go full on possession aided and abetted by a mystical totem? Obviously not. But she had expected that being Sara’s girlfriend meant that she’d need to stand by the Legend through various shades of gray.

For Sara not to give her a say in her ability or willingness to do so hurt more than probably anything else. She _knew_ her ex, she knew the temptations and struggles the Captain often dealt with alone, she knew the woman had demons that were not all vanquished.

She already knew so much and had wanted to learn, see, feel, and experience the rest. She would have followed Sara anywhere, even into the darkest reaches of time and space and Sara’s own soul, and she would have been there to try to pull her out again.

Loving Sara may have been, may _be_ a mistake given the depth and breadth of the darkness Ava understood was there. Some part of her appreciated Sara’s attempts to protect her because the rational part of her recognized that was what the woman was doing, but her heart didn’t agree.

She owed it to both of them to have an actual conversation about this now that some time had passed instead of anyone making decisions in the immediate aftermath of the events. Sara owed her at least a conversation, though she wasn’t sure the Captain would give her one.

Ava was content to let them escape wherever they were before she brought any of this up with her ex. Even in her somewhat unsteady, foggy state, she tried to keep up with them as best she could, as the anxiety she could feel from Sara and Gary was ratcheting up with each passing moment.

And then, in a blink of an eye, some of the fog in her mind lifted and everything Ava had said and done the last ten days crashed over her.

She abruptly stopped walking. How was she going to explain _any_ of that to Sara?

Ray grabbed her by the arm and gently pulled her along behind him, but her mind began to spin out.

She’d been with seven different women in ten days. A handful more and she would have doubled her entire lifetime of sex partners in a week and a half…though technically Rachel didn’t add a new partner to the count.

Had she been safe? Had she used protection? What did she even know about these women? Did they know where she lived or where she worked? How much had she said to any of them when drunk off her ass?

Did she need to use Bureau resources to erase some of their memories in case she wasn’t as discreet as she hoped to hell she had been? How would she even justify sending a memory wipe team? What would she say on the paperwork?

Did she know their names? Was it seven or…. _dear God_...were there more she couldn’t remember? She’d done a lot of swiping and drinking and dancing at womyn’s bars and more drinking and more swiping.

Holy fuck, how much had she had to drink? How was she even functional half the time?

Ava double-checked quickly – gun, flasher, badge, communicator, shiny new time courier. Everything seemed to be present and accounted for, so at least she hadn’t left Bureau property laying around.

She vaguely remembered that she’d moved into a hotel for part of the last week because she didn’t want to bring anyone else to her apartment. Gary had shown up there, and some part of her recognized that she had wanted to keep what she was doing far, far away from her actual life.

It was like someone else had done these things, and now Ava had to figure out how to live with it. Everything was a bit fuzzy, but flash after flash and memory after memory played through her mind. Her stomach roiled, but she didn’t have time to be sick.

None of this was like her. She hadn’t felt anything for any of them, for any of it. Rachel had even commented that Ava was robot-like and standoffish, not engaged, not present during sex. It had literally been no-strings-attached fucking.

Ava hadn’t done that in years, since her early career at the Bureau. Even then, she wasn’t drunk and stone cold. She wasn’t a demanding, no nonsense top who sternly rejected all forms of affection.

_So, now what?_

She wanted to be with Sara. She wanted to talk to Sara and share with her and spend time with her. How could she possibly explain how very young-out-of-control-Sara-Lance-like she had been? Granted, if anyone would understand using sex to hide from feelings, it would be her ex.

Ava was embarrassed. She was disgusted with herself and mortified. Sara deserved so much better.

Not that sleeping with as many women as one wants to in any one stretch of time was bad. She wasn’t about to slut shame anyone. But, for Ava, such behavior was way outside of her comfort zone and so far removed from who she knew herself to be that she had no idea how to even begin to reconcile it for herself, much less how she’d have the conversation with Sara.

She owed Sara the truth, no matter that it would likely reveal the extent of her feelings for her ex and the depth of her hurt over the breakup if she admitted that she’d completely lost her mind for a few days. She needed to be honest with her.

There was no way, no path forward for her to begin the conversation with Sara about being able to make her own decisions unless she started with a clean slate.

When they rounded the next corner, Ava couldn’t take it anymore. She didn’t know the next time she’d see Sara once they reached the Mothership and returned the Legends to the Waverider. She had to do this now while she was in the same place and time with the woman who held her heart.

She was in love with Sara; it may have taken everything they’d been through with the death totem and everything she’d stupidly done out of sheer pain over the past few days to acknowledge what she was feeling, but she knew Sara was someone she had to fight for, even if that meant pouring out extremely embarrassing information in front of Ray and Gary.

But Sara wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t listen. Okay, so maybe in the midst of whatever mission this was, was not the ideal moment for Ava to have this conversation, but she was afraid that if she didn’t make the conversation happen now she would never be brave enough to have it, and she might have to wait a long, long time before being this close to Sara again.

She took a deep breath and blocked the Captain’s path. She could see Sara calculating how easy it would be to pick her up and carry her to the Mothership, but she started talking as quickly as she could, watching when what she was saying finally broke through. She would give everything she had to not cause Sara pain, but she saw it flicker thru the woman’s eyes.

Ava’s determination to be honest at all costs with the woman she loved was, in fact, costing her the opportunity to ever fix whatever was between them. She could see that in the way Sara’s posture changed, the way her eyes chilled, the way she recoiled slightly from Ava, the way her mouth twisted.

She owed both herself and Sara full disclosure, complete honesty. But it ensured she’d never have another chance, and she was afraid that she’d lost the friendship and certainly the respect of all three of them based on the looks they were giving her. She couldn’t blame them. She hated herself, too, at that moment.

But Sara didn’t attack her when she responded to Ava’s lengthy admission as the Director had half expected. She indicated that whatever was behind her was causing at least some of the fear, anger, sadness, and regret that Ava could see in the Captain’s eyes.

She was…a clone. A future clone thing.

Ava wasn’t real. Nothing about who she thought she was real. She didn’t exist. She was some kind of future science experiment tragically misplaced in a different time.

Her mind was blank.

Sara was talking to her, trying to ground her, trying to prevent her from spinning into an anxiety attack.

The clones were very deadly, and the others needed her to focus on escaping the lab as quickly as possible. She knew that.

But her brain was also filled with a dull buzzing sound that blocked everything out. She was lightheaded and felt herself sway a bit. She knew they needed her to stay here, to stay present, to ground herself in Sara’s voice.

Her ex held on to her arms tightly, forcing Ava to look at her, to listen to her.

Everything she had ever thought or believed about herself was a lie. Nothing about who she was, was real. She had no idea when she had come online, so to speak, had no idea if she had even completed Bureau Training or had ever been in the FBI or had even been the Ava who had first met Sara and the other Legends. Nothing about her was real.

“Ava, you are real. You are as real as I feel about you.”

 _That_ …mattered. Sara saying that mattered. It broke through the wash of white noise and made Ava feel something more than the panic and desperation and anguish of the past few minutes.

Sara had known, obviously, since before she stepped through the portal that she was a clone. The Legend had, had time to somewhat adjust to this information, yet here she was reassuring Ava, encouraging her.

She didn’t understand how Sara could still have any feelings for her, though, given what they had discovered. Ava was one of a million copies. There was absolutely nothing about her that made her unique or special. Everyone could have an Ava for the right price.

She was a badass, yes, but she wasn’t sure how anyone would think she was different while simultaneously looking at 25-30 exact replicas of her.

Sara wouldn’t let her stay in her head for long. They needed her to push through this information for the good of the mission. They needed her to set aside everything happening between the two of them, everything happening in her own mind, everything she had admitted in order to save them all.

Ava could _somehow_ do that.

If shutting her mind off and pushing herself through something that seemed impossible to understand, much less accept was what was necessary to protect Sara, she needed to find a way to do it.

She may not be real and she may be some _thing_ born in a lab, but Ava still loved the Captain, and she’d be damned if her own emotional breakdown put Sara or Gary and Ray in danger. She could fall apart later.

Ava zipped up the black body suit, picked up the ray gun, and stepped around the divider wall to her companions. They were going to get out of here and sort this out after their lives were no longer in danger. Ava could do this. Director Sharpe could do this.

Her whole world was falling apart, but Sara needed her to make this happen. So, she did.


	7. Chapter 7

The smooth burn in her throat from the whiskey she'd been drinking wasn’t enough to make the look on Ava’s face any easier for Sara to deal with.

There probably wasn’t enough alcohol on the ship to make any of this okay for either of them.

Ava was barely hanging on to her sanity by a thread. Sara noticed her ex had slammed any emotional availability shut and had closed off to the world, including Sara, not that the Captain blamed her.

Sara was mentally exhausted, physically worn out, and bubbling with anger. Ava didn’t deserve this.

The woman she loved was wonderful, amazing, talented, dedicated, smart, sexy as hell, funny, and damned good at her job. Her being a clone didn’t change any of that.

Sara had, had the chance to think this through, longer than Ava had, had in fact. She had decided that where Ava came from was not important to her. Ava was Ava, whether she was from Fresno or from a 2213 lab.

The things that made her who she was were not from the lab but from the woman herself. So what if someone had engineered the memory of her paintball birthday? It still fit Ava to a T. Even if the memories themselves weren’t real, who they had turned Ava into, the woman she was because of those manufactured events _was_.

Nothing she had learned in Vancouver changed the way Sara viewed her nor did it impact the way she felt about her. But she knew that it certainly impacted the way the Director viewed and felt about herself.

There were hundreds of unanswered questions floating out there, some that Sara had not even begun to consider, but she knew that Ava was locked in her own mind, circling every question over and over again, beginning with “Who am I?”

Obviously, Rip held the key to finding these answers, but the answers would have to wait for another day.

Sara took the opportunity to unabashedly examine Ava in a way she had not in more than week. Whiskey in hand, the Director stared into nothing, slouched in the Captain’s chair, defeat and exhaustion covering her. Her eyes were red rimmed with dark circles underneath. Her lips were held tight and thin, and as Sara watched, Ava’s jaw clenched over and over.

The Legend briefly wondered how long it had been since Ava had slept, since either of them had slept, she wryly amended.

They had chatted for a few minutes upon their return to the Waverider over the Scottish whiskey from Sara’s stash. They would figure this out. Their teams would work together to take down Mallus. They, together, would sort through all that had happened.

Sara had, had to step away to check on the other members of the team, so she briefly left Ava alone in her office. She stood slightly out of Ava’s view now, watching her, and thinking, worried.

Ava needed her. Ava was spinning apart. Anyone who had heard the Director’s rushed confession earlier would have likely recognized the woman was not in tip top shape. Sara knew some of the blame for that was on her, her choices that she made without even talking about it with her then girlfriend.

But the clone thing on top of everything else would break even the strongest of minds. She desperately wanted to comfort her, but how would Ava respond to that? Sara was who had pushed her away, so she didn’t have the right to try to come in and be there for her.

That didn’t mean, though, that she wasn’t going to try.

“Ava…” Sara called gently from the steps into her office, waiting for her ex’s attention.

Her gaze wandered over to meet Sara’s, though distant and distracted.

“Ava, when was the last time you slept?” she asked, tentatively, hesitant about the woman’s response.

“Oh…you’re right, Sara. It’s late, and I should head home.” Ava was visibly trying to pull herself together, as she put the tumbler down and smoothed out the wrinkles in her suit. She moved to stand up but wavered slightly.

Sara stepped further into the office and caught Ava’s arm, briefly to stabilize her, before hastily letting go.

The look in Ava’s eyes was indecipherable. “Thank you.”

She straightened herself more fully and looked down at her replacement courier. “I’m going to need my time courier back, Sara. This one doesn’t have my apartment programmed in yet.” She smiled, slightly, sadly.

Sara pulled Ava’s courier out of her pocket and slid it onto the woman’s other wrist. “You’re all set, Director.”

Ava smiled again, but the smile still did not reach her eyes. She looked down at her courier once more and sighed.

She shook her head faintly, almost in spite of herself, took the replacement courier off, and wordlessly handed it to Sara, surprising the other woman who tried, unsuccessfully, to swiftly hide her grin. The Captain tucked it into her pocket.

Then they stood there…looking at each other.

Sara couldn’t stand the silence, the awkwardness between them. She knew she was responsible for putting the distance there. She knew they hadn’t really been alone since she’d told Ava she wouldn’t do this, couldn’t have a relationship with her.

The Legend was aware that now, several hours after their return from Vancouver, everyone else was in bed, Gary had returned home, and the stillness of the ship made this space between them so much worse.

After several long moments ticked past, Ava reached up to activate her courier home.

“Don’t.” Sara murmured.

Ava’s head shot up, and the woman stared at her, hard, an emotionless mask in place.

“Don’t leave.” Sara slowly lifted her eyes to hold those of the woman standing in front of her.

One of Ava’s eyebrows crept up slightly, but she said nothing, forcing Sara to explain whatever it was that she was doing or thinking.

“I…”

Sara sighed and shook her head, looking down briefly.

Ava waited.

“I don’t think you should be alone right now.” She looked back up and into Ava’s eyes, hoping to convey the support and friendship she wanted her to feel.

The Director scoffed. “My issues of late have not stemmed from my lacking company.” 

Sara saw the wince form as soon as the words came out of her mouth. Ava rushed to add a quiet, strained, “I’m sorry.” The woman looked away, embarrassed and uncomfortable, a blush crawling up her neck.

It was clear that Ava wasn’t trying to hurt her, rather that she was beating herself up. For everything.

“None of that matters.” Sara’s voice was strong and steady. Kind. She needed Ava to believe that nothing she had learned in the past 24 hours made her respect or value the woman any less.

“But – “ she immediately objected.

“No.” The Captain cut her off, stepping into her personal space. It only hurt for a second that Ava pulled back slightly, but she didn’t move completely away. When she glanced back up at Sara again, so many competing emotions spun through the gray-blue eyes.

“Ava, you need to sleep. I don’t care about what happened yesterday or the day before. I care about now. I care about you, and you are about to fall over.” She reached out and caught one of Ava’s unconsciously balled fists in her hand.

Ava closed her eyes, a single tear escaping as she shook her head at Sara and tried to pull her hand away. Sara held tight.

“I’m not asking for anything from you. I don’t need anything from you.” Sara spoke to her as if she were a wild animal, ready to bolt, because Sara knew she only had one shot at this, one chance to prevent Ava from shutting her out of her life for good. More tears dripped from under Ava’s closed eyes.

“I will sleep in the cot in the med bay, or you can, but I need you to stay on the ship. I need to know that you are safe tonight and that you aren’t having to deal with all of this alone.” She held her breath and waited, gently rubbing her thumb across Ava’s loosened fist.

After several minutes, Ava finally whispered, “I haven’t been home in days. I can’t– I couldn’t be there. Not like that.” She opened her tear-filled eyes but stared at the ground, seemingly afraid to look at Sara again. Her shoulders sank even lower, as if the weight of the world was falling onto her.

“Hey.” Sara squeezed her hand, hoping to pull her back from her internal judgments. “Hey!” she said more firmly when Ava ignored her.

Haunted eyes gradually met hers. This was too much for either of them to deal with right now. _Too much._

She turned and walked toward her quarters, pulling Ava behind her with surprisingly little resistance.

She didn’t want to overthink anything she was doing. Any friend would do the exact same thing Sara was doing, right?

She silently thanked Gideon when she came into her quarters and the lights were down low and ocean wave spa music was already playing softly.

Sara lead the Director over to Ava’s side of the bed, trying hard not to think about the fact that she had not yet started sleeping in the middle of the bed again since her ex had left. She gently helped Ava sit down and bent down to take off her boots. She stood and took the blazer the woman struggled to remove, folding it over the chair in the corner and placing the boots beneath.

Ava stared once more into nothing, seemingly unaware of what Sara was doing. She stepped to her dresser and pulled out some of her longest pj pants and a tshirt. Sara couldn’t help but smirk, tinged with regret as she noticed it was a Time Bureau softball shirt. She stacked the pajamas and a fresh towel, grabbed a new toothbrush, and laid them softly beside Ava.

Sara placed her hand briefly on Ava’s shoulder and squeezed. “Let Gideon know if you need me, okay? I’ll be right down the hall.” Ava nodded slightly once, still not looking at her.

She turned to leave the room, moving away from the bed, and a hand reached and grabbed her wrist firmly. Sara stopped immediately but did not turn around.

“Stay.” She barely heard the agonized plea it was so quiet. “Please stay with me,” Ava whispered.

And then Sara heard a choked sob, quickly followed by another louder sob, one coming right on top of the other. She had her arms wrapped around Ava before she even had time to think about it.

The Director completely fell apart, all careful control lost, and Sara held her through it, gently rubbing circles on her back and running her fingers through Ava’s hair after pulling out the tight bun. A long while later, several minutes passed without a sound from Ava, and Sara realized that she had finally fallen asleep.

She shifted them around on the bed so she could lean against her headboard with Ava’s head resting in her lap. It wasn’t especially comfortable for Sara, but she’d slept in worse conditions than having the woman she loved clinging to her as if she was the life thread keeping her intact.

She knew it would be awkward in the morning, but she didn’t regret asking Ava to stay on the ship or the fact that they were both going to sleep in their clothes because at least they would be side by side, finally able to rest in the presence of the other.

Sara’s last thought as the exhaustion overtook her was that they would figure it out. She had no doubt that the road in front of them would be filled with many challenges, and she wasn’t sure that Ava would ever forgive her for pushing her away after the death totem.

She was still worried about the darkness that lurked within her, but she had to admit it was not anything Ava didn’t already see or know. She didn’t want to hurt Ava, but the woman was already being hurt by Sara pushing her away. She didn’t know if they could find their way back to each other. She wasn’t sure how she’d ever get over Ava if they didn’t. But…

She loved Ava, and one day, when Ava most needed to know that, Sara might be brave enough to tell her. Maybe one day Ava might be brave enough to love her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think! Comments are a writer’s best friend. : )


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